Posted
by
samzenpuson Thursday May 20, 2010 @12:37AM
from the collective-swindling dept.

eldavojohn writes "In a disturbing case for average consumers, nine DRAM chip manufacturers have been fined more than $400 million for price fixing. The named companies are Samsung, Hynix, Infineon, NEC, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Elpida, and Nanya. A tenth company, Micron, avoided fines by reporting the other nine to the authorities. Since all companies cooperated with the probe, they received a 10% reduction in fines, so it could have been worse. The US DoJ has had its own history with chip makers and LCD makers in price fixing scandals."

There are many other cases where pricing appears to be fixed, but it's a deliberate lack of competition (eg in Australia, the weekly fuel price cycles where everyone drops prices at the same time). At least this occurrence will be punished, and yes it will eventually come from the consumer wallet... but I don't see much else that can be done other than fining (and imprisoning the human culprits if possible).

Actually, a more interesting way of fining publically traded companies might be to disallow and/or heavily tax payouts to shareholders for the next few years.
That would create a _real_ incentive to follow the law.

Consumers around the world will be paying more for their DRAM chips, but EU citizens will be getting more services or paying less in taxes because the coffers of a nation are fed, so it kinda cancels out for consumers (non-EU nations of course should fine these companies too if they haven't already to be in the same situation).

Fines are supposed to be a punishment so that companies avoid anti-competitive behavior in the future. You're right, however: the companies either have already made enough money from their unethical behavior, or they will roll it into the cost of future products. The punishment is not nearly severe enough.

Repeat offenders should be fined in the billions of dollars as a warning to other companies. The only thing that will keep shareholders interested in executives who obey the law are a few cases where companies are fined into bankruptcy and then broken up and sold off.

> Repeat offenders should be fined in the billions of dollars as a warning to other companies

That's silly. As the various financial blow ups show: losing other people's money when you gamble with other people's money is not a big deal. Especially when you get big bonuses if you win big. It does not discourage risky/improper behaviour at all.

If you want to discourage them, send them to prison.

If a multimillionaire gets sacked because the company got huge fines, what's that to him? Though a multimillionair

More importantly I think is the only thing that will keep executives interested in being executives who follow the law is seeing those who don't PERSONALLY fined into bankruptcy and/or sent to prison for appreciable periods of time.

I can kind of see your point, but what do you suggest? That we don't punish companies for collusion?

Any of the manufacturers that weren't in on the price fixing should be able to undercut the cheats that have to recoup their $400M fine. - Not that I can think of a RAM manufacturer that isn't in this list, off the top of my head... I suppose collusion works best when everyone is in on it, eh?

When you think about it, it's like a global tax to feed the coffers of a nation

No it isn't, it's a punishment for a group of corporations for breaking the law. You clearly haven't thought about it very much and have just been scared by the "T" word, the alternative to fines is to permit them to get away with collusion, and that will just raise prices, no. BTW I like paying the T word as it provides me with many services, not the least of which is a cheap world class medical system (Shamelessly borrowed from Shutdown -p and slightly altered).

I'm just saying...

I'm just saying you're an idiot, OK, that's a bit harsh. Perhaps you are a really intelligent person but you've just had a brain failure during that post.

Please think a bit more critically. This isn't a "tax" (gasp, shock horror) it's punishment for something they've already done. First this will end up coming out of the companies bottom line because 1. after being convicted of collusion they will be watched like a hawk and 2. now their cartel is being broken up actual competition will ensue (with all the price cutting benefits therein). I'm sick of people assuming this is a zero sum game, that prices will rise because it costs them more in fines. This thinking ignores the fact that the market will only pay for what it will bare and ultimately raising prices to cover a loss from a fine will attract more attention from the authorities as well as reduce the amount of product they can sell. The market will not automatically accept the rise of all RAM prices unless they all raise the price at once and well that's collusion, which what got them into trouble in the first place.

Sorry, but "let's" is correct, "lets" is not.It is an abbreviation of "let us".

I think concluding that this ruling will cause prices to fall due to increased competitiveness is being a bit optimistic. It simply isn't in their best interest to be competitive or seek to outprice each other, seeing as they are essentially all selling the same thing and profit margins need to be maintained.

The costs of production (in which this fine will be a factor) only set a lower bound on prices. No company just takes costs+10% or something. They try to maximize profits by finding the sweet spot on the demand curve.

And before the anti-EU argument comes up again, I'd like to point out that Infineon is European. The US does the same btw, i. e. when they fined Daimler $500 million for corruption.

This is where "free markets" are supposed to regulate the prices keeping any one company from raising their prices above the rest. If you raise your prices, you become uncompetitive.

This fine is not going to raise prices at all, they know perfectly well that the buyers won't accept any increases. I'm not talking about consumers here, the biggest purchasers are likely the PC makers.

The 400 million indirectly goes to us taxpayers in the EU in some form or another. Even net contributors to the EU are also recipients of EU money (e.g. third level research).

Also it means companies even if they continue these kinds of behaviour, are more likely to pursue it outside the EU (we don't have to be sufficiently tough to stop the behaviour, just tougher than elsewhere, e.g. US).

Finally, even if these fines don't stop this behaviour in the EU, the fines make for headlines that increase public awar

Under true unrestricted free market capitalism things like patents and copyrights would not exist, so long as there were people out there with the resources to copy then there would be competition. It would mean software and other trivially copied goods would be completely unprofitable, and would either be community developed or developed as a loss leader to sell other product (eg hardware to run it on)... Hardware obviously couldn't be distributed for free because of the unavoidable costs of manufacturing

No, actually, there is just one morally valid punishment: Separation.Or in other words: Hey you, chip maker! We don’t allow price fixers in this country! You have one week to leave. If you or any sub-part of you are seen here again, you will be personally assassinated! Now GTFO!Of course, as we are nice people, we will forgive them after a couple of years. If they still exist by then. (Considering how pretty much every other country would also throw them out.) But they will definitely

Yes, that'd might hit them hard enough to get them to care, but we'd have the threat of job loss and thus the "too big to fail" argument (again). Could be a good thing in the long run, but very unpopular.

That's insufficient. Let's say that the probability of getting caught is p. p is = 1. Now, the average cost for unethical behaviour is the same as the profits of this unethical behaviour times p. Hence, it is rational to remain unethical: you can only win.

Ideally, the penalties for such behaviour would be in a different category than profits, i.e., not money: jail time for executives who made this decision, forced donation of part of their company to a randomly selected competitor, forced public-domain

I seem to recall from the Microsoft case that the EU is not generally amused if they check later and find it's still happening. That is, they cartel will start to get a series of considerably larger fines unless they actually stop.

As far as I understand, the EU sets fines proportional to the sales over the duration of the sales, with a proportionality constant dependent on how much the infringement hurt the market. Although not many details are published on the EU website so far (EU case on DRAM [europa.eu]), the EU has published the guidelines for the fine calculation (Guidelines on the method of setting fines [europa.eu]). More details on the settlement decision will follow.

But that's not really a fine then, is it? If I steal $100 out of someone's wallet and then get "fined" $100 then I really wasn't fined anything, I just gave back the money I stole. If that's the only punishment I receive then why not steal money all the time? If I get caught I'm out something I shouldn't have had in the first place, if I don't get caught I get free money.

They should have to give back the extra profit that they made illegally and then be fined an extra amount for doing something illegal i

Did they? What were the profits of the respective DRAM divisions of these companies in the period that the cartel operated (1998-2002)?

I'm not disputing your claim - just asking for evidence. Hynix lost $4 billion in 2008; the DRAM market has traditionally been highly competitive and not the huge source of profits that some people think it is.

"Since the fine is within the range of a reserve already fixed for such issue in FY 2008, the company believes that the fine will not have a material impact on its current year (FY 2010) consolidated financial results."

I say rather than fines, we ban one of those companies from the US market forever. We repeat this process ever time there is price fixing incident. Shareholders of those companies will not tolerate the risk and management will be too scared to pull this shit again.

How would you plan on enforcing that? Customs officials opening every stick of RAM, prebuilt computer, cell phone, router, set top box, et al, and determining if the device in question has Brand X DRAM?

Seems entirely impossible to me, with the majority of electronics being manufactured outside the US.

All the fines were reduced by 10% because the companies co-operated with the probe.The crime was done in the name of money, profits. But the punishment, monetary, was reduced for cooperation. So basically what companies can learn from this is: price fix as much as possible, once caught cooperate as much as possible, then keep more of the profits from the price fixed products.

A 10th chip maker, Micron, was also part of the price-fixing cartel but escaped a fine in return for alerting the competition authorities.And if you blow in the competition you get to keep ALL of your price fixed profits. What kind of a system is this? Am I missing something here? How exactly are these companies being punished so that they won't do this again? Hell they are probably already learning from their mistakes and looking to secure another price fixing scam for the immediate future.

It actually does make sense to reduce fines if they cooperate. If they didnt it would take more money to convict them.
But if the fines, after cooperation discount, are not more than the profit raised by the crime, multiplied by a factor based on a good estimate of the percentage of the time companies do this and get away with it, then it is no deterrent.
Sadly, in the western world today, this is exactly the situation with pretty much all regulation of industry. No deterrent. Just a cost of doing busines

Suppose there are several companies. They can either price fix or not price fix. If they're price fixing, they can alert the authorities and keep their 'winnings' while the other price fixers lose a certain amount of money. Whether or not they price fix will be determined by the fine they receive. If extra revenue > fine, then price fix. If extra revenue fine, don't price fix.

But all of the price fixers should rat each other out. In theory, they'd all get to keep their pro

And if you blow in the competition you get to keep ALL of your price fixed profits. What kind of a system is this? Am I missing something here? How exactly are these companies being punished so that they won't do this again?

That's how they catch them. It creates a nice Prisioner's Dilema where the first to break ranks get's away with it.

Countries that have laws for this experience much higher rates of catching price-fixing cartels than those who don't.

Hell they are probably already learning from their mistakes and looking to secure another price fixing scam for the immediate future.

After they have proven themselves as snitches, who exactly would trust them and get in a price fixing cartel with them?

By encouraging breaking the conspiracy you make it more short-lived. A price-fixing conspiracy is based on mutual trust shared between all the partners. If you violate the trust, the conspiracy can't exist. If you provide a good incentive to destroy the trust, you fight it efficiently.Actually providing the "traitor" with long-term market benefits (say, a tax relief) that give them an upper hand above competition would be even better, breaking up the conspiracies even earlier.

Most DRAM companies have operated at a net loss when taking into account the accumulated earnings of the last decade. There is incredibly fierce price competition within the industry.

Do you really feel ripped off when you buy a product that is composed of billions of transistors, has tens of billions of R&D costs behind at at a price of $1 ? (That was the price of a 1Gbit chip not long ago) I don't want to sound like an industry advocate here, but I find this

Most DRAM companies have operated at a net loss when taking into account the accumulated earnings of the last decade. There is incredibly fierce price competition within the industry.

And yet, without price fixing, that competition would allow the incompetent companies to drop out of the market and the players capable of making a profit to operate the market. Instead, what we've got is protectionism for the failures.

...but when are they gonna fine the various cell phone carriers who are so obviously price fixing that it's laughable. 30c SMS in most of Europe _unless_ you pay an extra 15E a month, etc... They are all the same crooks with an already paid infrastructure of antenna most always financed directly by the states.

Call me cynical, but semiconductor is one of the few industries where heavy competition happens and prices fall down quickly. I dont mind price-fixing if it saves an industry (and I am talking as someone currently unemployed and having difficulties making a semiconductor start-up mainly due to the current state of the industry).
Compared to other professions, when will Lawyers be fined for price fixing??? When will hospitals and medical insurance companies be??
This is mainly the case because it's easier to get into Engineering than it is to get into Law or Medicine. People at the top in Law and Medicine make sure to limit the number of professionals getting into their ecosystem each year so they can justify their high salaries.
Then you keep hearing (at least here in the UK) from all of these people/government official the old cliche of: "We need more doctors to solve the health issue!" - and all I see around me is an abundance of people wanting to be medical doctors but not being able to become one.

The thing that was disturbing to me is that the consumer lost out here and the government is pulling in $400 million. When will the actual victim (people who made DRAM purchases) receive restitution? Never.

Why would they need to cut taxes? If the government gets additional income that means their budget is that much closer to being balanced, which means lesser additional debt which means lower future expenses. I don't need to directly get a slice of the fine in order to profit from it.

In any event, if done fairly government prosecution does both A) clean up the marketplace and B) raise government revenues. It's an overlooked funding source many times. Given how most governments are teetering on bankruptcy, one wonders why there isn't a focus on oversight activities -- every little bit helps. Oh right. Because of bribes from private industry. Never mind.

What I found interesting was the amount: an average of about $44 million per corporation ($400M / 9). Contrast that with the profits each one made on this scheme.

What annoys me is that a lot of this stuff is so pervasive that I cannot in anyway knowingly boycott any purchases of DRAM from these companies. There's probably DRAM in any piece of electronics you buy whether it be Sony, Nintendo or an actual Samsung product.

And then what happens to the companies who take a $44 million hit? You think their CEOs just sit down and eat that? They don't take their medicine, they slightly markup their product and again the consumer loses! This sort of price fixing fixed by fining model is just not working.

What I think should happen is that all the products that were price fixed should be entered into the public domain in the country where the price fixing was conducted and the company was found guilty. Meaning all patents and designs of those products are now owned by the public. The public overpaid for them so force the companies to give something back to the public. The manufacturing processes and techniques can be kept secret but all the chip design and patents should be open for competitors to step in and make a better cheaper product. I know a lot of people will think that's overly harsh but frankly the DRAM manufacturers should have thought of that before they started price fixing. You think times were tough when you tried to turn some illegal profit? Try now when everyone knows everything about your product. Really, that's the only way to 1) make them think twice about price fixing and 2) actually give something valuable to the victim that has a positive result instead of a negative result.

If that's the way business works in Korea, Taiwan and China then I don't care. But they need to learn that price fixing is not acceptable when they do business in the US and the EU. It blows my mind but it seems to happen everywhere in the world of circuitry and electronics. Since the companies just seem to be taking these fines in step and repeating or continuing with their practices, you have only one option: up the stakes.

I'm going to put on my cynical hat and just say this. Nations like the US and EU don't want to punish companies too harshly. It's sorta like killing the golden goose. Gotta keep that tax revenue flowing after all.

Corporations are like gangs, and the Government acts like the mob. They work for and against each other in much the same way.

You have it backwards. The European markets are "golden geese" to the chip makers! There will always be yet another competitor that would happily sell and profit in the European market(s) should the competition die off. This is basic economics, but I don't expect more on Slashdot.

And what tax revenue are you referring to? These companies sell their products in Europe, but the profits are sent back home. The majority of the companies mentioned are not European. The only tax revenue Europe sees in this case is sales tax on the items and a limited tax on the profits, after deductions, of the European branches.

The real issue is abusing the markets you operate in, if you want do business in Europe or the US you have to follow the local rules. I really hate the way ignorant Slashdotters rant when they talk about the EU and fines! Never mind that the US does exactly the same thing, however when Europe and the EU decides to act according to our identical laws "you" dare criticize and pass judgment on matters you have no understanding of!

The EU is acting to regulate markets in accordance with law, the motive is clearly to keep markets healthy for producers and buyers alike. The guilty parties are the chip makers!

I don't think most Americans understand how fervently nationalist they sound on the web.

There will always be yet another competitor that would happily sell and profit in the European market(s) should the competition die off. This is basic economics, but I don't expect more on Slashdot.

Actually, it is one of the assumptions of quite a few economic theories. One that, if you ask me, is stretched all too often. For example chip markets are far from ideal, lots of government involvement (subsidies), institutionalized cartels (patents), and sky-high entry barriers.

Go ahead, 'just' start another competitor. After all, if the others are fixing the prices it shouldn't be too hard to compete.

The only tax revenue Europe sees in this case is sales tax on the items and a limited tax on the profits, after deductions, of the European branches.

Given that VAT is 15% or more in pretty much all of the EU (over 20% in some places), and the typical margin for memory chip makers is under 10%, the various governments probably make more per sale than the chip makers.

The EU is acting to regulate markets in accordance with law, the motive is clearly to keep markets healthy for producers and buyers alike. The guilty parties are the chip makers!

As a parent poster pointed out, a fine of $44m per company is probably significantly less than the profits that the company made from participating in the scheme. That means that it's not going to deter this kind of behaviour significantly, it's just going to reduce the total profits by a little bit. This looks more like the EU taking its cut from the scam than actually trying to prevent it. If they really want to prevent price fixing, they should take the fine and invest it in a new competitor for these companies. $400m is enough to build a chip fab, and I'm sure some companies like Intel and IBM would be interested in licensing them the required designs...

Nations like the US and EU don't want to punish companies too harshly.

The stated aim [europa.eu] of fines due to EU competition policy is to "deter companies from setting up or continuing cartels". Think of it in the same regards as the FSF and GPL enforcement - the aim is to bring companies into compliance, not to generate funds by way of punishment. Obviously a fine will also act as a form of punishment - the difference is that the policy is to bring companies into compliance with the law, rather than bring companies to the edge of bankruptcy.

The trouble with fines is that they just become another cost of doing business, and will get weighed up against the expected profits from actually doing the illegal activity in the first place. In other words, breaking the law is just business as usual only with a relatively low risk.

Punishments need to be far more damaging so that companies become unwilling to risk breaking the law, possibly even hold the owners personally responsible and throw them in jail.

What I think should happen is that all the products that were price fixed should be entered into the public domain in the country where the price fixing was conducted and the company was found guilty. Meaning all patents and designs of those products are now owned by the public. The public overpaid for them so force the companies to give something back to the public. The manufacturing processes and techniques can be kept secret but all the chip design and patents should be open for competitors to step in and make a better cheaper product. I know a lot of people will think that's overly harsh but frankly the DRAM manufacturers should have thought of that before they started price fixing. You think times were tough when you tried to turn some illegal profit? Try now when everyone knows everything about your product. Really, that's the only way to 1) make them think twice about price fixing and 2) actually give something valuable to the victim that has a positive result instead of a negative result./quote.

THIS. THIS. Punishments that don't hurt are ineffective. This doesn't just hurt, it slays.

Making the fines big enough to wipe out profits might not deter companies if the execs making the decision have plenty of time to hit the road before the antitrust case comes through. I don't know antitrust law well enough, so maybe there are penalties on the EU books that can be thrown at individuals- given they were complicit in a crime, I should hope so.

Last time I checked, all companies except Samsung are losing money on each DRAM chip they sell. These companies are competing themselves to death. Qimonda already went bankrupt last year because of such a competitive environment. In fact, I can't think of many other products where companies compete so hard to make.

The obvious solution is to stop pretending that the abstract corporate entity "engaged in price fixing" and remember that some number of specific individuals(who happen to have offices within that corporate entity) were the ones who actually decided upon and executed that price fixing.

Fining corporations is a dubiously useful exercise because, if small, the fines are simply a cost of doing business(and, since the rational decision maker will discount the possible fines according to the probability of get

And what evidence do you base that on? How would your big monopoly stop competitors from emerging? Care to provide any examples of where such huge monopolies did happen and survived for any length of time? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdLBzfFGFQU [youtube.com]

Your rational thought is failing you. The reason you can't come up with any examples of natural monopolies is that there aren't any. It's a mostly a theoretical problem because it simply does not happen in practice.

What would _stop_ a cartel or monopoly from forming ?

Cartels are inherently unstable and rarely form at all. What is the advantage to the most efficient company in a particular market in joining a cartel with less efficient ones when it can beat them in the competition and take their market share? Even when a cartel does form (say to fix the price to a higher level) a strong incentive is always there for each of its members to undercut the others and take their market share.

Once a few companies have gotten together, or a single one has gotten large enough, how is a new competitor going to enter the market when the established ones can either buy it out, or just undercut it until it runs out of cash ?

If the monopoly is setting the price to high (say 30% profit margin) then it is presenting an incentive for every investor, every company in a similar industry which might already have infrastructure in place, and every foreign company in the same industry to enter into the market and set its margin to 20% and steal much it the monopoly's market share while still raking in a large profit. At some point pretty soon the monopoly will not be able to buy them all out. If the monopoly is setting the price very low in order to discourage competition then where is the problem? The free market is working through the possibility of competition if not actual competition.

It fucking happened! The market was in effect, they fixed the prices. Only afterwords regulation corrected it. Or are you saying the cause and effect are reversed and it was the fine that cause the price fixing?

About Friedman: "Oh, let's reduce import tariffs and let external companies to compete and finish those national monopolies"

That's all nice and dandy, but those monopolies aren't national. In this case, they affect the whole Europe. What do you do when we have a

The evidence I was asking for is to back up his claim that "Huge cartels (if not just one big monopoly) is exactly where the "free market" would end up without this sort of regulation." I think price fixing is a natural property of a free market in that it will inevitably happen and cannot be generally caught without, as in this case, somebody snitching. However, I don't think that it is nearly as big a problem as he suggested as cartels as inherently unstable and tend to break down quickly. Each of the com

The billion dollar cost of a chip fab line is already a pretty good barrier to entry. DRAM mfgs. have to spend an enormous amount up front and make it back within the few years that the fab is leading edge.

You know, as much as I hate cartels and price fixing, in this case I kinda understand it. The prices with competition simply got so low they were basically killing each other. I mean, I remember when "maxing out" a board was a sign you had some serious cash and weren't afraid to spend it. Now my latest PC has 8Gb of DDR2 800 which after rebate I paid a whole $60 for!

While this is all candy and ice cream for me, when the margins get so damned slim all it takes is a slight dip in sales to slaughter a company

Since when is 8gb of DDR2 maxed out these days? Sorry mate, but maxed out at the moment is something like 32gb of ddr3. And that would cost you more then a thousand still.

And if you can't compete on price, then compete on quality or go bust.

THAT is the free market. Companies SURE love the free market, except when it bites them in the ass. Understandable perhaps, but it is also understandable that since I am poor and you are rich and I cut your throat and take your cash. There is always an excuse to break

Say what ? Price fixing is *absolutely* "free market". Huge cartels (if not just one big monopoly) is exactly where the "free market" would end up without this sort of regulation.

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." Adam Smith quotes (Scottish philosopher and economist, 1723-1790)

Electricity generation is not a natural monopoly. Electricity distribution is the monopoly because each consumer only wants one set of wires to attach to their house. In Massachusetts the two are separate and I can choose who to but my electricity from.

The thing that was disturbing to me is that the consumer lost out here and the government is pulling in $400 million. When will the actual victim (people who made DRAM purchases) receive restitution? Never.

Perhaps because you are looking at it the wrong way. The government isn't fishing for money, the EU is punishing a company for anti-competitive actions. The EU has two acceptable choices to punish a company, 1. put some directors in jail, this is a long drawn out process that will take time whilst the r

Is this the same price fixing that occurred when Intel tried to shove Rambus, a crappy, expensive, proprietary RAM technology down our throats? And they colluded to LOWER their prices to kill Rambus? In my opinion, they did us all a favour. If Rambus became the "standard", we would be paying a lot more money for memory now.

The patent issue is a whole different can of worms. But there is no amount of PR that could have changed the fact that DDR was faster or equal to RDRAM in terms of overall performance, and at a significantly lower price. Also, the memory makers have not formed a cartel. Almost all are selling their chips at a loss, which is a clear indication of heavy competition.

Using Intel's near monopoly, Intel and Rambus were trying to force proprietary RDRAM technology into the mainstream. If the other memory makers wanted to make RDRAM, they would have had to pay huge royalties to Rambus. If Rambus became standard, it would mean that the memory makers would be slaves to Rambus. Also, I would bet those patents were as ridiculous as the 1-Click patent and no technology was actually stolen, but was obvious enough to be invented independantly.

You are correct, because DDR uses the same patented techniques that RDRAM did, it was just as fast.

What? Are you insane? Same techniques? Just as fast?!

The only thing DDR and RDRAM have is that they transfer data on both edges of the clock signal like a thousand other technologies that already existed at the time, on chips and on PCBs. Rambus did not invent double pumping data busses; it was already a standard technique for reducing signal integrity issues on the clock signal. See a variety of FSBs tha

The thing that was disturbing to me is that the consumer lost out here and the government is pulling in $400 million. When will the actual victim (people who made DRAM purchases) receive restitution? Never.

This slap on the wrist is supposed to discourage them from doing it again.

Keep in mind if this was a class action lawsuit, you'd have a chance at winning... $0.10?:P

At least in the US, governmental fines are just the beginning of a price fixing cartel's troubles. They are also subject to private civil class action lawsuits brought on behalf of consumers. In fact, most price fixing civil class action lawsuits are spinoffs of governmental FTC investigations in the US. For example, there are currently pending several private class action lawsuits for LCD price fixing and the recoveries there will be in addition to the hefty FTC fines already leveled against the members of

Who ends up paying the 400M and where does that money go? Consumers around the world will be paying for it

Ummm.... You do know that consumers around the world have already paid for it don't you. Now it's the colluding companies turn.

Unless you are proposing we let them get away with Collusion, because that will lower prices for sure. You're clearly OK with spamming your crappy business on/. (which I'll put good money on the fact you're not paying Geeknet.inc for).